52 WORCESTER COUNTY JIOR TICULTUKAL SOCIETY. [18'.)9. 



cing harmony than the ones we see on the trunks of the ehiis, 

 ashes, on the stone-walls and fences after a rain. 



There is on Mt. Pisgah a rock covered with a rich growth of 

 Umbilicaria, which is worth a visit after every rain. The 

 boulder is covered with the delicate apple-green folds or rutHes, 

 which fall in frills, showing the rich underside, which is black 

 and velvety. It is the lichen, I think, which Mr. Bolle refers 

 to in his description of a lichen which covers the peak of Mt. 

 Chocorua. He calls it the burnt paper species. He describes 

 himself as going out into a swamp during a heavy thunder- 

 storm to see the effect of the rain on various thinos. Among 

 other phenomena he sees this : — 



" Presently a vista opened northward, and at its end rose 

 the dark peak of Chocorua. After a rain, this towering rock 

 presents a noticeably difi'erent appearance from its normal color- 

 ing. Most of its surface is covered by lichens, one species of 

 which, when dry, resembles burnt paper. When rain falls 

 upon them, these lichens alter their tints, and the burnt })aper 

 species in particular becomes so green that a wonderful change 

 takes place in the whole coloring of the mountain." 



How many lichens are associated with our country walks, 

 perhaps, unconsciously ! The Cladonia, or reindeer moss, 

 that crackles with crisp brittleness as we climb the hill pastures 

 in summer ; another Cladonia with tiny goblets, my father 

 used to tell us children, were " fairy wine-glasses," and the 

 little vermilion-tipped species near by, the " fairies red-apple 

 trees"; the Cetraria, found so abundantly in old pine trees; 

 Pelligera, conspicuous among the green mosses in spring ; 

 JJsnea, that cosmopolite that drapes the trees of the swamps 

 like Southern moss, and sacred to all bird lovers as the chosen 

 material of the nest of that dainty darling the Parula warbler ; 

 Stida, whose curiously-shaped and mottled chalice doubtless 

 suo-ojested the likeness to and hence the healino- of the lun«;s ; 

 Parmelia, whose circles of crimped, close-clinging tissues, 

 slowly enlarging from year to yeav, form, with the rocks and 

 fence-rails on which they grow, one of the most familiar back- 

 grounds which the New England nurtured eye takes in. And 



